What is Nothing vs Absolutely Nothing?

[Ebolamonk3y]

Nothing is ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________And that's what I have to think about that.

 

[felipefas]

I think this thread has lost is usefulness

 

[Ebolamonk3y]

Perhaps you are seeing nothing in this topic of something.

 

[Moonrat]

Perhaps you are seeing nothing in this topic of something.

hehe, what can one get out of a discussion about nothing other than nothing!

If you have a hard time understanding nothing, then just look at what you don't understand to see what nothing is...

 

[aurora]

one more time for aether

Miller's results have been debunked. They are found to have a systematic error in them, apparently caused by winds shaking the mountaintop lab where he did his measurements. His reasoning was that ether clings to matter and so to get a good experiment the equipment had to be surrounded by as little matter as posible. So he built his lab high and light. Unfortunately that exposed him to the elements, which gave him false results.[/QUOTE]

SelfAdjoint, perhaps you are referring to the well-known paper by Shankland et al, which analyzed Millers’ experiments? [Not having read the above or the actual works by Miller] I base my response on the critical papers of Demeo and Allais (you can see them at http://www.mountainman.com.au/aetherqr.htm), which claim that all interferometer experiments, including the original Michelson-Morley had fringe readings. What one does or does not do with experimental data is strictly a human/scientific dilemma.
While Miller was still alive, he was able to defend against the accusations of his colleagues (including Einstein) about solar and radiant heat contamination of his readings. Actually, his interferometer was specially built for him, making it by far the most sensitive and stable of its kind. To mention again, he took about 200,000 readings compared to M-M who did about 46. According to Demeo’s paper the data was selectively chosen by Shankland to prove his point. Adding to this, the over three hundred pages of data that Miller accumulated were given to (his student) Shankland, but have since disappeared.
If ether theory turns out to be true, Einstein’s GR has some holes in it. Allais found from Miller’s work that the velocity of light is not the same in all directions and that it is possible to determine the motion of the Earth from purely terrestrial experiments.
Aside from the scientific experiments on “energy” what about its philosophy? Can one really say that space is empty, or just composed of numbers? What rotates and moves the planets and also makes life“grow/move”? It seems that people who were closer to nature (and nature is science!) as Galileo and primitives, could feel God/aether in themselves. I’m sure if they were asked the questions that are posed in this forum, they would have no doubts about their answers, since they were not cut of from their objective sensations as we "up-in-the-head" moderns are. And can we argue against personal feelings regarding “the power of the universe” or love? Where do purely abstract numbers divorced from sensation fit in this schema?

 

[PRyckman]

A complete lack of everything, might look like the end... but does it look like the beginning?

It depends what you mean by beginning. Before things started, or when they started. Like wise with the end. The last moment, or after it's over.

 

[PRyckman]

Wow, that was a lot of reading, I had like 7 more quotes but my browser timed out. I like that star trek guys comments it really brought a new perspective into it. I agreed with most of them. As for the quarrel about a given value for zero, I think we will forever be getting closer, but never achieve a measurable zero. That seems obvious to me, because you certainly couldn't witness an infinity.

What if zero was expressed as +1? Because for plus one to equal one there must have been zero to begin with. This would allow for the fact that we can never measure a zero. Note that's what it is defined as in D=E(t)

 

[n0n]

you certainly couldn't witness an infinity. What if zero was expressed as +1?

Yes 0 cannot be observed as a whole (a perspective is something too), but you couldn’t observe any of infinity as a whole either, weather it be .11 INF, or 3.1415926 inf. both order and chaos which means absolutely nothing. We can apply meaning to whatever and we do every day, and that is a +1, but it is also a perspective of observation. Not with a whole of infinity just part, just part of nothing, just part of something, just part of simple order concepts, just part of complex order concepts (chaos). but in a realistic universe surrounded by everything mathematically infinite we have a finite (which is also to say, nothing has a finite of observation from our hybrid minds of something/nothing), so the real idea behind finding a source is finding that finite within the infinite math, and time naturally causes such a finite to occur, in all objects of math. So a concept needs to prelude time, it needs to make time its essential bone to exist. As for nothing, it doesn’t exist, look at the bases of number systems, how is it that in base 3 all concepts of mathematics are harmonious, but in base 10, 1/3 is an illogical when checking errors (1/3 * 3 = .99 when it should = 1), could it be that illogical is a viewing unto nothing(I think so). Base 10 is an all consuming of concepts, and so an illogical must also exist for it to be such a living concept.
Note to all: The idea of a continuum from nothing, is just a concept to fit an idea of oblivion to the best of all compared ideologies of ‘nothing’, so yes I get that nothing does not exist but like any mathematical concept it is infinite some were, and if it is, then it must have created us from within its own ability to be nothing. Naturally, that’s all, and that’s what I try to explain.

 

[PRyckman]

uhhh, huh?

 

[tabloid]

if something is expanding towards 'nothing',then both smthing and nothing are elastic i.e. they both have property of elasticity.its like pressurizing some kind of elastic ball.

 

[Gil Fuller]

nothing

Nothing is simply the opposite of something. Nothing cannot contain anything, do anything, or be anything. If it does any of these things,or anything else at all, then it is something. Nothing is a simple concept.
Why there is "something" is the interesting question.

 

[paglren]

Nothing is a simple concept.
Why there is "something" is the interesting question.

Sorry, but also a simple concept is "something".
The most fascinating answer to the question is that "everything" is coming out from "nothing", or better from the infinite "way" (out of space-time) in which "nothing" represents its own concept.
In other words: since "absolute nothing" (i.e. "the unmentionable"), let's call it "", IS ITSELF, then it ISN'T as well.
This paradox cannot be put into time because it cannot be both true and false, but the same paradox could "generate" an infinite "vibration true-false" that we perceive as space-time due to our "perception rules".
What about a video game that nobody has already imagined? Is it "nothing"? Has it a self-time? Truely it is not yet born... so does have it a "negative" age? Relative to which?

 

[shrumeo]

wow, what a philisophical question to be answered in the physics forum.

my 2 cents about the matter is that if you can imagine "infinity" (which you really can't even if you believe you can) then you can imagine "nothing" (it seems easier to imagine nothing than infinity, but when you do it, you always are thinking 'absence of anything' which is something, not absolutely nothing. ) for you to even imagine "nothing" you would have to not exist, or anything else for that matter.

well, i wonder why this one has 20 PAGES of replies when it has jack to do with physics and everything to do with metaphysics. I think we need to go check out some Jean-Paul Sartre to clear this one up.

 

[killerinstinct]

Nothing is simply the absence of everything.

 

[Messiah]

wow, what a philisophical question to be answered in the physics forum.

my 2 cents about the matter is that if you can imagine "infinity" (which you really can't even if you believe you can) then you can imagine "nothing" (it seems easier to imagine nothing than infinity, but when you do it, you always are thinking 'absence of anything' which is something, not absolutely nothing. ) for you to even imagine "nothing" you would have to not exist, or anything else for that matter.

well, i wonder why this one has 20 PAGES of replies when it has jack to do with physics and everything to do with metaphysics. I think we need to go check out some Jean-Paul Sartre to clear this one up.

It's easy to imagine nothing (in its abstract definition). It takes absolutely no effort - In fact it REQUIRES you not to imagine. Infinity, on the other hand, might keep you busy for a while . . . a L O N G while

If for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction then the value of the outcome of every processes is 'nothing'.

 

[UltraPi1]

I've made a few threads on other forums called the Reality of Non-Existence. The jist of it is that reality is a conceptual entity, and not a physical one. That we are made up of discrete quantities of nothing, and that this Non-Existence is infinitely divisible. We are but parts of a finite whole that is continually increasing in stature toward the infinite possibility.

In our universe there are ony ones, one at a time, where time is the nothing that ones are composed of.

 

[Erck]

wow, what a philisophical question to be answered in the physics forum. Well, i wonder why this one has 20 PAGES of replies when it has jack to do with physics and everything to do with metaphysics. I think we need to go check out some Jean-Paul Sartre to clear this one up.

I suppose the Theory of Everything or any other way we choose to describe the search for the fundaments of existence, is something that might be inacurately described as Physics.

Isn't the root of physics, metaphysics, math, philosophy etc. actually logic?

 

[Gil Fuller]

While it is true the "concept of nothing" is something-an "idea", it is also true that the essence of "nothing" is "non-something."

Something cannot originate from "nothing" ( the essence-not the concept) because "origination" requires something change. If nothing changes, there is no origination. Since the essence of "nothing" is "non-something" and since there is no "something" present in "nothing" to change, something cannot originate from nothing. Conclusion: The Universe has always existed as something. It is impossible to originate from nothing.

 

[sol2]

I suppose the Theory of Everything or any other way we choose to describe the search for the fundaments of existence, is something that might be inacurately described as Physics.

Isn't the root of physics, metaphysics, math, philosophy etc. actually logic?

I think that if you studied Smolin's approach in three roads there is a synthesis that is taking place.

Topos Theory in a Nut Shell

Now the basis of the new math as topos theory, arises out of the logic[?], but it also arises from the philospohical discourse on such approach. The road to the new math recognizes all the maths that currently exist. Having accepted this, and knowing what has taken place, assume here all pathways of Klein's order of geometries also have laid over them all the maths of string theory. If strig theory has a dry spell, then indeed it has lacked the luster of vision and means, to verification. How will ingenuity spark possible scenarios for consideration if no one can see what the heck they are talking about?

String theory needs philosophers[?], as well as their logic, in order to know what new steps could be taken. That's my personal opinion:)This forces all of us to ask the question of origination and how such maths will arise. It defintiely cannot arise from nothng, so we have to make certain assumptions about the nature of the background?

From such paradigmal acceptances, such previews allow new vistas for consideration, as Smolin does in three roads. That is a lesson of consideration for me.

Kip Thorne took the vision to a new level with the interferometer experiments in the construction of LIGO. If you have simultaneous positions, also recording, what similarities would say that such a event exists.

But there is more to it if we really want to delve into the subject of the universe and the ideas behind gravity, especially if we recognize the strength's and weakness, as part of the ends of dimensional significance.

This information then allows us to see what was capable in the events unfolding history. The geometrical dynamics revealed in those gravity waves?

 

[n0n]

Here’s a philosophical comparison of logic, reduction of something to nothing. You all remember reduction of factors to find the least or most common denominator (something like that) right? Well what are the differences in something becoming nothing, and nothing becoming something? A Latin word for something out of nothing exists (and for the life of me I cannot remember), but I'll just call it a free lunch. So what makes a lunch free? The answer is life undoubtedly, but what aspects of life cause a "free lunch", to give all, in one moment, and reduce? Is this not E=mc^2'ish as well?

 

[shrumeo]

Nothing

you know, this drunken meandering means nothing...

 

[n0n]

your absolutely right. I came across these documents on-line, its for a class or something like that but pretty much, I just looked at the universalness of what is being said. It works so why not this:
http://www.tcw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/micro/Uncertainty%20Reduction%20Theory.doc/
http://tip.psychology.org/hull.html
http://www.fluidairinc.com/Products_files/Size_Reduction_Files/sr_theory.htm

inf. n=1->

N = inf. distance & inf. closeness
0 = inf. # of N note: inf. means any number
N = (0*10^n) (0/10^n) note: 0 represents a # of N
nothing = N0N
something = N0N/N0N and the reduction to the least common denominator and nothing
time = the continual providance of such an act/ repetition of the reduction in ever changing complexity to order (fractals)

maybe ? I don't know. <- and that is nothing, that is why intellegance is something. For one concept is the whole of nothing and something is the whole of all consepts. haha looks like I killed another forum, I seem to be pretty good at that, must be doing something right cause no one wants to really argue it? Or maybe its just too lucid?

 

[Rahmuss]

Nothing is what most discussions are about.
Absolutely nothing is what this discussion is about.

I couldn't resist.

 

[Doctordick]

What you miss is a very important issue. There exists only one thing which can produce knowledge from nothing. That is the comprehension of symmetry. Symmetry is essentially a statement that some piece of knowledge is unavailable: spherical symmetry is a statement that no information exists which can differentiate between directions. That constraint imposes some very fundamental relationships which must be true. If you want to understand the issue, ask me. I will do my best to explain it to you.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[n0n]

wow, Can you not see the symmetry involved in such a consept? Its the only place in mathmatics, that has the ability to create something like matter. We have super computers trying to figure out how large pi is and that's nothing, this could explain the universe and no one wants to look other then me. now why is that?

The concept is so simple and insignificat how could it be such a thing, I don't know, maybe it has to do with going from simple to complex in some weird "mathmatical truth" fractal. Which is what this concept creates eventually, in the early stage the outcome is infinitly complex, but I have taken single divisional numbers and they create squares, inverted squares ( four smaller squares, 1 of each attached to the courner of a larger center square, well that's what it looks like, not how its drawn), and lines. The only thing I changed when I observed such things were what A equals, and what B equals, in a division of (A/B=C).

here's a pretty good visuall of what I'm trying to get across. Take a seed from a tree, say it was on the ground, now if their is the right amounts of sun, water, dirt, and even right time of the year, that tree would grow. now their are seriouse odds against the seeds because what that seed gets seems to be pretty random and lots of seeds means a greater chance of survival, or continue some process it cannot help but to continue.

another adventure, take the whole of nothing, and imagine that symmetrical sphere of nothing (you being outside of it), now if you see the whole of the sphere as an opposed reaction to something (doesnt matter what it is jus that something is) it becomes infinitely small. now say this is an accelleration at ininity ( I use this because mathematics is infinite), and the universe is so infinite that their is another point of opposed reaction to something, what would that create if they collided? N0N is just another concept of becoming infinitly small. and 0 is the random process of creathing something, it don't matter what its is, just as long as it is.

If their is no symmetry within this then I haven't a clue what you mean, and please explain it.

 

[Messiah]

Symmetry = for every value there is an opposite equivalent

 

[bettysfetish]

-

I love this topic However it's quite problematic
The closest you'll get to "nothing" would be the eternal moment that was just before the creation of the energys that E=mc2'd into matter.
On one other point I read about 18 pages back; If a Big Bang explodes in the place with no time and no one is there to see or hear it, - - Did it happen?
I'd bet the entire exsistance of the universe on it.
What do you suppose happens to this medium of virtual activity? "Nothing" (theres that darn word again) needs to be displaced. This place might, or should, be goverened by virtual forces that would be opposite ours; this place being of matter and "that" place being of "no matter, or "nothing." It seems the two states of being should be "mutually attractive."
These two events would easily add to an expotential expansion rate. But at this point we're discussing matter again. It seems nothing has to move out of the way yet what isn't there might be attractive to the matter being converted.
It should still be there surrounding us, and the deeper we look into space the sooner we will see only the nothing that exsisted before there was matter. That very void may still be excerting an underterminable pull on the matter in the intire universe contributing to our accelerated expansion. "Could solve this "dark matter" quandry we seem to be in." Mabey there's no repulsive forces between particles; perhaps an external gravity or anti-gravity, if you will.
Oh Well - - -
----"After all is said and done, Gravity Rules."-----

 

[connect]

Science is the arbitary division of the whole to study the wonder of its movement...nothing only ever appears before or after something.

Once nothing is understood, it is still nothing.

Once something is understood, it is always something.

 

[PhalanxGun]

Replies, Blah, Blah, Blah :)

Being that I'm not 5-dimensional-at least to the point of interacting with all 5 dimensions :)- I cannot fathom "nothing-ness". How can you people even conceptualize the actual "nothing". For me, nothing implies an endless region with nothing in it; and since there is nothing there how would we know it exists? :)

-Just Your Regular Neighborhood Computer Programmer/Wierdo

-PhalanxGun

(U.S. 20mm Phalanx CIWS (Close In Weapon System) Vulcan Cannon)

:)

 

[RAD4921]

The Book of Nothing

The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas About the Origins of the Universe
by John D. Barrow


Search inside this book
List Price: $15.00
Price: $10.50 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. See details.
You Save: $4.50 (30%)
Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours


22 used & new

 

[UltraPi1]

I cannot fathom "nothing-ness". How can you people even conceptualize the actual "nothing". For me, nothing implies an endless region with nothing in it; and since there is nothing there how would we know it exists?

I consider the universe to be the concepualization of nothing. In short - We are the reality of non-existence. There are no physical realities - Only conceptual ones. In our universe there are only ones - One at a time, where time is the nothing that ones are composed of.

 

[n0n]

toe, or Theory of Everything, is a blend of all things conceptual, and what are all things conceptual? nothing/something, and they must blend, and blend they will, who deside's this, the multiple minds in the society of science. only one can blend them, for their is only one way to blend them (still as of yet to be found). only 1 can define 0 for within a 1 is the ability to be both 0 and 1 and so is a choice or a process of equalization (you cannot have 1 dimension without 2 infinitely small points as infinite in distance).

hence logic becomes physical reality, morality lays physically as a process that cannot be helped due to some misinterpretation in reduction to realization. "yes, I agree", "no, I disagree" when really any answer may also exist "correct" in null (how can nothing choose yes or no, unless you give a shifted statement/question like," if you want to go then you come with us now, if not were leaving" nothing cannot go and so the shifted statement would be you stay).

UltraPi1 , that's a good way to look at it, time is 0 and whatever is involved in time is 1. brings up the question of, does the moment right before I typed this still existing, or is it 0. I say it still exist as a scar to some shape of a fractal.

what i don't get is why hasn't science looked at the mind as a form of black hole? I wonder about it all the time, it makes a lot of sense, just absorbing everything (well light any ways, energy too, but information just gets sucked in, like a substance created black hole taking all logic in and releasing that single geyser of light or consciousness.

see, someone could say here it is, the answer to the universe as some huge equasion, And i would pick up every book I could just to teach my self to understand it. but as that has yet to happen. I will still think its going to be the most obvious answer, why? cause if it seems just blunt and to the point isn't it usually correct?

 

[connect]

1's and 0's, 0's and 1's.

I believe its like 'feet' that are 'walking' down the street.

Look to the left, look to right.

We are really in a plight that is stalling our flight.



The mind - an absolute point by which all relative measurements are taken.
How does it work...tick, tock, tick, tock...where does time come from...tick, tock, tick, tock.

My heart 'beats' and blood runs 'through' my viens.

Do people want 'knowledge' or 'understanding'?

 

[UltraPi1]

does the moment right before I typed this still existing, or is it 0. I say it still exist as a scar to some shape of a fractal.

I would say it is the concept of nothing that still exist. Any closer examination of this fundamental concept will yield nothing. I.E Examination beyond ONE nothing will leave you conceptually bankrupt. The universe is a conceptual geometric construct of nothing, and we can expect an infinity of these geometric entities to be possible.

 

[bettysfetish]

Well, we'll never "really" know the answer here; perhaps in a few generations. PhalanxGun - - it seems you've answered your own question a while back. You questioned how we could possibly invision "nothing", "It's like such & such - - -..." Well, you've done it. It's an intirely conceptual thing.
And to all;
Using numbers to try and pin this down will not work, "Unless" we can come up with some "Conceptual Numbers" to use. One must remember to never include anything that is, or is made of, particles when trying to invision this place.
We can all agree that all matter came from one singular, infinitly small point. And before that is infered speculation, conjecture and theoritical conceptualization. The infinity problems?; I don't have that problem anymore, not since giving String Theory a chance. I see there are some of you that frown upon, or have not accepted it for one reason or another, some alternitive theorys. This is certainly not the T.O.E., but we must keep building a foundation for it. Unless some one has found something completely absurd or intirely unfounded by current theories in some new theory then it should at least be investigated.
"Nothing was there" and "nothing" is an unstable system. "Any" quantum fluxuation would have tipped the balance our way.
L8R